Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotions, and/or intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography,sculpture, and paintings


Personally, other than music, art rarely has an affect on me.  I can't remember when a film or a painting caused a second thought. Well, just twice.

In 2006, walking thru the Louvre, past the the Venus de Milo, past hundreds of beautiful paintings, nothing made me hesitate to give a second look.  Not until a walked into a room, and in the middle on a wall, she made me stop in my tracks, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I'm of course talking about the Mona Lisa, and really wasn't prepared for that reaction.  It was not as if walking by another painting, but walking into a quiet room with a beautiful smiling lady.  I can only remember feeling that way once before, years before.


That time, was with a movie. Movies were big with my family, but I could always take them or leave them, even walk away in the last ten minutes of a film with no regret.  Star Wars left me wondering....what's the big deal?

But in the infancy of the VCR, my sister rented movies that were somewhat obscure, and most were for good reason.  But there was one that was different, one that gave me cold chills.

That movie was Badlands, a movie that excited me as to the possibility, of what film could be.


Years went by and I remember reading in the late 90's about the director, Terrence Malick,
(born November 30, 1943) an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer.  In a career spanning decades, Malick has directed four feature films.
Numerous critics consider Malick's films to be masterpieces.  Malick was nominated for an Academy Award for both, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director for The Thin Red Line.
 


Why is this now important ? Because he over the last few months he has been making a movie in Bartlesville! ( his parents live there)

Can you imagine living in the time of Leonardo? ( the painter, not the actor) and watching a genius for all the ages,  be creative?

I do think film is the most important art of the 20th-21st centuries. Hundreds of years from now, what will it be that stops them in their tracks? Transformers? Jurassic Park? Not likely.

I don't know what film it will be. But, I'm betting that whatever is, the artist name will be Terrence Malick.
 
Written by Faron Harris